α-Fetoprotein and Transcortin Behave as Acute Phase Reactants in the Maternal and Fetal Compartments of the Inflammatory Pregnant Mouse*

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Immunological and binding methods have been used to demonstrate that acute inflammation induced in the pregnant mouse by a single sc turpentine injection elicits plasma protein responses in the fetal as well as in the maternal compartment. The maternal response involves, along with the classical pattern of positive and negative acute phase reactants seen in the inflammatory nonpregnant animal, a highly specific approximately 2-fold increase of .alpha.-fetoprotein (AFP) concentrations. In addition, the high pregnancy-associated corticosteroid binding globulin (CBG) levels drop dramatically (2-3 times) in response to inflammation. The fetal response is characterized by small (10-25%) but statistically significant declines of AFP, CBG, and albumin concentrations, without any increase in levels of the positive classical acute phase reactants. The divergent responses of the estrophilic mouse AFP on the two sides of the placental barrier result in a 3- to 4-fold enrichment of the maternal serum vs. an approximately 20% impoverishment of the fetal serum in high affinity estrogen binding sites. The similar decrease in levels of CBG in mother and fetus leads to marked losses of high affinity corticosteroid sites for both. Neither the affinity constants for the estrogen-AFP interactions nor those for the corticosterone-CBG interactions are affected by inflammation. This is the first report of AFP as a positive marker of acute inflammation, of AFP as a pregnancy-specific inflammatory reactant in the mouse, and of a plasma protein response of the fetus in utero to an inflammatory stress undergone by the mother.
Keywords